Skip Navigation

Knowledge. Generosity. Community.

Commencement Speakers

Speakers

Links to Commencement addresses are given if the speaker has granted permission for Smith College to publish the text of their speech.

  • 1879: Charles W. Elliot
  • 1880: Daniel C. Gilman
  • 1881: Rev. Alexander McKenzie
  • 1882: George P. Fisher
  • 1883: Francis A. Walker
  • 1884: Charles Dudley Warner
  • 1885: Andrew P. Peabody
  • 1886: Rev. William R. Huntington
  • 1887: Rev. Francis G. Peabody
  • 1888: Col. Thomas W. Higginson
  • 1889: Rev. Brooke Herford
  • 1890: John Dewey
  • 1891: Jacob G. Schurman
  • 1892: John Bascom
  • 1893: Hjalmar H. Boyesen
  • 1894: William DeWitt Hyde
  • 1895: William J. Tinker
  • 1896: Rev. Washington Gladden
  • 1897: Rev. John Henry Barrows
  • 1898: Rev. Kinsley Twining
  • 1899: Rev. Richard Salter Storrs
  • 1900: Hamilton W. Mabie
  • 1901: James Hulme Canfield
  • 1902: Edward Everett Hale
  • 1903: Bliss Perry
  • 1904: Rev. Dr. Henry van Dyke
  • 1905: Felix Adler
  • 1906: Hon. Samuel W. McCall
  • 1907: Samuel McChord Crothers
  • 1908: Hugh Black
  • 1909: Rev. George A. Gordon
  • 1910: Rev. Hugh Black
  • 1911: Washington Gladden
  • 1912: Bliss Perry
  • 1913: Henry Churchill King
  • 1914: Charles E. Jefferson
  • 1915: John Huston Finley
  • 1916: Charles Summer Whitman
  • 1917: George Edgar Vincent
  • 1918: Bliss Perry
  • 1919: Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve
  • 1920: Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge
  • 1921: Roscoe Pound
  • 1922: Rev. Samuel McChord Crothers
  • 1923: Rt. Rev. Charles Lewes Slatte
  • 1924: Chauncey Brewster Tinker
  • 1925: Ada Louise Comstock 1897
  • 1926: Paul Shorey
  • 1927: Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick
  • 1928: William Lyon Phelps
  • 1929: Raymond Blaine Fosdick
  • 1930: William Ernest Hocking
  • 1931: Norman Thomas
  • 1932: Ralph Barton Perry
  • 1933: Alanson Bigelow Houghton
  • 1934: Christian Gauss
  • 1935: Chauncey Brewster Tinker
  • 1936: William Ernest Hocking
  • 1937: Walter Lippman
  • 1938: George Lyman Kittridge
  • 1939: William Allan Neilson LLD ’42
  • 1940: Wystan Hugh Auden
  • 1941: Roy Dickinson Welch
  • 1942: Archibald MacLeish
  • 1943: Herbert Davis
  • 1943: Vera Micheles Dean
  • 1944: Max Lerner
  • 1944: Mildred H. McAfee
  • 1945: Leverett Saltonstall
  • 1946: C.E. Kenneth Mess
  • 1947: Edward R. Murrow
  • 1948: William Clyde DeVane
  • 1949: Robert F. Bradford
  • 1950: Herbert Davis